


through his blinding reign

by Mira_Jade



Category: Turn (TV 2014)
Genre: . . . why yes . . . yes I am, Am I using an actual historical celestial phenomen as a plot device?, Awkward Flirting, Character Study, Episode: s02e10 Gunpowder Treason and Plot, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Missing Scene, Soul-Searching
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-06-05
Updated: 2016-06-15
Packaged: 2018-07-12 10:55:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,940
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7099957
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mira_Jade/pseuds/Mira_Jade
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Anna Strong, Edmund Hewlett, and the Solar Eclipse of 1778.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Ellipse

**Author's Note:**

> Because this series _will_ end with Anna and Edmund happily living together in Scotland. Even if it's only in my mind. In the meantime, we have the delicious realm of fanfiction to sustain us while the writers do . . . whatever it is they are doing.
> 
> To that end, all recognizable, italicized bits of dialogue are taken from episode 2.10: _"Gunpowder, Treason, and Plot"_. The rest is my playing fast and loose with this ridiculous, wonderful show and actual bits of real history. I hope that you enjoy.

_O Stars and Dreams and Gentle Night;_  
_O Night and Stars return!_  
_And hide me from the hostile light  
_ _That does not warm, but burn—_

 _That drains the blood of suffering men;_  
_Drinks tears, instead of dew:_  
_Let me sleep through his blinding reign,_  
_And only wake with you!_  
  
~ _"Stars”_ , by Emily Brontë  
  
  
  
Her hands shook as she followed the road back to Whitehall; she could not yet govern her emotions enough for them to still. Her footfalls were dull in her ears, made gravid with the weight of her turmoil; with every strike of her boots against the newly thawed earth she could feel the reverberations echo in her spine, seemingly keeping a careful rhythm with the quick, bird's wing beat of her heart . . . for she could not, she _w_ _ould not_ -  
  
\- _Abe_ , was the one recognizable glimmer of concordant thought amongst the confused maelstrom of Anna Strong's mind. His name was a beseeching wail, seemingly drawn from the depths of her spirit to tear through her consciousness in a desperate search for something, anything to make her better understand . . . to rationalize . . . to _accept_ -  
  
_I know, it sounds impossible, all right, but it's not._  
  
\- she flinched at the memory of his words, and felt her stuttering pulse quicken to throb in her fingertips. She clenched her hands into fists - a useless gesture for a useless rage - _a_ _s it ever was,_ or so it seemed _,_ and yet -  
  
_Because it's murder,_ she had not been able to stammer out anything other than that one simple truth, that one indubitable fact, _and it's done in cold blood . . ._  
  
He had not flinched, she numbly recalled, he had not exhaled in that way he did before parting with an opinion he knew she would contest. His mouth had not thinned in distaste, with his brow crinkling and his throat working fruitlessly against his discomfort with the necessary of what _had to be_. His eyes had not shadowed with guilt, taking on that all too familiar sheen that said he wished things could be different, that he'd rather fate's web be woven any other way – for such was an expression that she seemingly knew better than her own face in the looking glass, better than the own points of bitterness and frustrated dreams she carried in her own eyes as battle-scars for all to see . . . no, she had not seen that look. It had not once blinked as a passing thought through his eyes.  
  
Instead, Abraham – Abe, _her_ Abe - had merely stared at her. His eyes had shone clear – defiant and resolute and _burning_ – to argue, to insist:  
  
_Hewlett plans to pass on my name to Andr_ _é_ _. Do you remember him from New York? Listen, when he hears the name Woodhull again, when he hears Setauket - where he's already sent Robert Rogers to look into the ambush that we planned . . ._  
  
\- yes, yes, she knew. She _understood_. And yet . . .  
  
_Yet._  
  
Anna flinched, disliking the near painful sort of honesty with which she usually attempted to view her heart and mind – for such a pang was now a familiar one, even as it retained its ability to wound her when she searched and admitted to that which she'd rather not think or feel in the first place. Shakily, she took in a deep breath of cool air to better settle herself from her thoughts, feeling her lungs contract and depress as if underneath the weight of a millstone. She could smell the thick, wet mire of the leaf rot, newly exposed by the melted snow, just as she could make out the cleaner scents of the rippling Sound and the damp wood from the recent, almost torrential spring rains. The green scent of the budding trees and blooming underbrush was a bright note against the lingering heaviness of the thaw, and she concentrated on that, grounding herself on the familiarity of her home, _her_ home. She stopped on the path, and let the rhythm of her breathing move the weight from her lungs . . . slowly, once and then again until she could feel as if a deeply drawn breath was not a blade tearing an arc through her chest. At long last, she forced her heart to resume its natural beat, until, finally, she felt that she could free one finger after another from the cage of her fists.  
  
At last, she found herself strong enough to walk again, and she continued to wander aimlessly for she knew not how long – she only knew that the afternoon was turning its way towards evening, and the sun was turning to tip from its high cradle in the sky when she finally felt that her pain and desperation and disbelief had retreated into something more numb and considering. By the time she crested the hill leading to Whitehall, her expressions were her own to control once more, and her thoughts only gave a tell-tale tremble as she lined them into some semblance of marching order within her mind, wondering _how_ -  
  
“ - ah, Mrs. Strong, I was hoping that I would find you here.”  
  
As a punctuation point to her thoughts, she blinked in time to see the face her erstwhile mind had only just been pondering as she came upon the green behind the manor house. Surprised, she blinked, taking a moment to collect herself before turning to acknowledge the voice that had stopped her in the yard. When she lifted her eyes, she found herself anticipating what was now a traditional greeting from the major: the way the corners of his eyes crinkled, the dark brown within lightening with something quick and warm as they met her own; the way the line of his too-wide mouth would stretch in a smile full enough to disguise what she had first thought to be a lacking feature in his countenance before. There was something disarming in the look, even artless (though she, of all people, knew him better than that), as if she were the sun that the newly budding earth looked towards for the warmth to bloom once more (which, how the one existed in the shade of the first was a puzzle as binding as any to the bemused probes of her mind), and she . . .  
  
Anna simply bit the inside of her mouth to keep from frowning at receiving such a look, ever uncomfortable as she was with the easy affection it carried within – that it offered and asked her to accept, at that. Instead, she forced herself to focus on the crimson and white tones she could see peaking from the concealing black panels of his cloak. Even when hidden, she knew that the colours of his king were there, gilding him the same as a serpent with its bright scales and all but warning an unwary hand away from its venom. It was a warning she should heed, she knew, and yet -  
  
_Yes, Major Hewlett of His Majesty's Royal Army,_ Abe's voice rang through her mind, as ominous and clear as a bell's toll. _Have you forgotten who our enemy is? Have you forgotten we're at war?_  
  
\- Anna Strong had never quite learned how to hold her hand away from that which burned.  
  
“Major,” she at last found herself returning his greeting with a small, bobbing curtsey. Immediately, she could see the way his smile dipped ever so slightly, and she amended her words without a conscious thought to prelude her doing so, _“Edmund.”_  
  
No matter that such informality had been often assured as desired, she found her voice lowering to ensure that his name was heard only in the small, polite space between their bodies - no matter that the closest of his men were too far away to hear, and she had been subject to worse causes for scandal and gossip than the impropriety of using a bachelor man's Christian name before.  
  
“Edmund,” her last thought had her raising her chin and repeating his name with more strength than she last had. In Hewlett's gaze, she caught a glimmered reflection of the spring's light, and she let that anchor her own gaze as a ship struggling for mooring in rough waters. “I had not expected to see you walking about,” she added to her greeting when her gaze automatically flickered over him (as any decent human being may have worried for the pains of another, of course), searching for what his habitually straight posture and carefully militant bearing may have sought to disguise. He was so soon on his feet again, she thought, too quickly - much too quickly - following -  
  
Yet, perhaps seeing the quick probe of her eyes and correctly interpreting her concern, Hewlett only stood up straighter under her regard and waved her cares away with a flick of his hand. Nonetheless, there was a faint flush spreading over his pale cheeks (where she did notice the color returning all the more so to health with each passing day), answering to more than the faint chill still lingering in the air. Her concern had pleased him, she understood, and, discreetly, she tried to dip her gaze away from any too overt an expression following. A friend was a friend – as, somehow, the tangled thicket of thorns about her heart had hesitantly dubbed the major as – but, for a man gilded in Imperial red while she hung petticoats and wrote damning words in invisible ink and prayed for _America_ in the secret-most places in her heart, she knew better than to even consider him a _close_ friend. Then, to tug, however unwittingly, at that warm thread she could even now see reaching out for her from his eyes . . .  
  
Anna Strong knew herself to be many things: a liar, long before she was a spy; a traitor to the Crown, but unrepentantly loyal to her country; and an adulteress, no matter how she tried to keep her feelings for Abe in their proper place . . . but she was not intentionally cruel, and she would not foster his hope when her answering that hope would never be the major's due. So, she made a square of her jaw and a line of her shoulders, even as she felt a pang in her heart – the same as anyone cast into the unfair and unwanted position of rejecting the feelings of another would feel . . .  
  
Of course, she only felt pain for the wounds she was inflicting upon another, she insisted to herself – firmly and finally. She had to sound the words twice, and then three times in her mind before they carried any sort of weight, and her higher reason grudgingly accepted them.  
  
Meanwhile, Hewlett's too-wide grin had split into something that dwarfed his features in an admittedly pleasing way. There was something secret – even mischievous – hiding in the corner of his countenance. It was so faint that it first took her a moment to define, but it nonetheless reminded her of a night of stars close enough to touch and strange, unexpected beauty found in strange, unexpected places. In answer, her heart picked up a wondering beat, and she had to consciously keep her hands from fidgeting. Furthering the mystery she had unwittingly stumbled upon, Hewlett answered her initial concern by assuring her, “Yet, today is such a day that I would walk across coals to see its glory unfold. Truly, I simply consider myself - consider _us_ \- blessed for clear skies and a mild disposition from mother nature's breath. For today is an auspicious day - indeed, it is a _momentous_ day - and I'd not let any so slight an injury keep me from observing it.”  
  
Anna felt the corner of her mouth tug upwards at the barely concealed fervor of his words. Giving into her wondering, she tilted her head to inquire, “In what manner is today so special?” She felt curious, despite herself, and watched as her curiosity drew something inordinately pleased from him in return. Indeed, he seemed as if he'd hoped she'd ask.  
  
“I was hoping that you would ask,” unerringly, Hewlett's confession intoned in time with her thoughts. “Really, that was just why I sought to fetch you. I would have asked for your company sooner, but you were quick to attend your duties at the tavern this morning, and your return took longer than usual,” he said, perhaps with a note of awkwardness in his last syllables as he realized how his words may have been taken. “I do not mean to imply that I was - that I have been - tracking your whereabouts, of course,” he added, perhaps a touch more quickly than was needed. Momentarily, he closed his eyes in that all too familiar manner that said that he was inwardly grimacing over his choice of words. She watched as he rallied himself – quicker than he may have done only weeks prior, just before his imprisonment - and pressed on with determination to clarify, “I only feared that you would miss this phenomenon, and that was a thought I could not bear.”  
  
“It was an ill night,” even as she mentally puzzled over what would constitute as a _phenomenon_ in their small, sleepy corner of Long Island, Anna excused her absence with the truth. She felt her heart clench, and had to fight to exhale a level breath as she once again called to mind the words she had exchanged with Abraham only an hour before. She felt the chill of the air bite against her skin, and pulled her cloak more securely against her body in response. “I needed to clear my mind with some fresh air,” she did not have to feign the truth to admit. “This I needed in such a manner as interacting with Mr. DeJong's . . . patrons does not normally achieve.”

For a moment, the violence that had passed just that night before – which she had so far caged in some dark corner of her mind rather than properly reflecting over and dealing with accordingly, instead shoving her recollections of smoke and steel and _desperation_ into the same dark corner of her mind where she stored her impotent rage for the injustices heaped upon her father and husband, right next to her buried hurt and longing for Abe, _Abe_ – threatened to overtake her with its memory, and she . . .  
  
_It's going to work,_ Abe's voice echoed in her mind, even as she met Hewlett's eyes. Suddenly unsettled, she called to mind the surprisingly easy way the Ranger's flesh had given to her stolen blade before she encountered bone and the force of her blow met with unmoving resistance – jarring her enough that her hands tingled at merely the memory. She blanched to imagine Hewlett, with his wide smiles and never-ending fount of trivia, staring up at her in the same dead, vacant-eyed way once the violence was done and the smoke had cleared. _We just make it look like Simcoe ordered it - just like we did those other two Rangers._  
  
She, alarmingly, could not quite fight the flinch that split her features in answer to the distress of her thoughts. Ignorant of her true mind, Hewlett nonetheless observed the pinched, pale cast of her countenance - of course he did - and she watched as his own expression tightened in answer to her pain.  
  
“Yes, it was indeed an ill night – and morning,” this he added drolly, “to cap many such ill days. Yet - perhaps I am premature in my hopes for success - I have taken pains to see that the certain . . . odious elements contributing to the discordant unrest in this town will very soon be dealt with. Permanently.”  
  
His last word was said with such a note of finality – with satisfaction and the conviction born of just reason - that she at first blinked to hear the force of it. For a moment, she found herself taken aback, knowing the measures of which he spoke - _Hewlett plans to pass on my name to Andr_ _é._ But, more than merely the pang of worry and immanent concern she felt for that thought, she found herself staring – taken aback, as if seeing Hewlett for the first time in clarity, rather than through the haze of some thick fog. There was a new poise to his bearing, she finally let herself observe. Though he walked with a limp – and would ever continue to do so – there was now an assured confidence to his stride - a certainty, a _belief_ \- knowing that the worst life's hand could deal had in fact been dealt, and in turn dealt with. Rather than awkwardly standing as a mere academic man thrust into the boots of a soldier to answer the call of king and country, he had proven himself worthy of the commission he held, and his every pore and gesture reflected the newfound poise and mettle he'd discovered within himself. He had grown into his skin, rather than wearing it heavy and uncomfortable on his bones, and now . . .  
  
_You're different . . . you've changed,_ she had accused, only hours ago, and Abe had merely stared, the corner of his mouth hooking to say - __  
  
\- yeah, prison will do that _to_ _you._  
  
She thought of Abraham then, clearly and without the bias of her heart: darting looks from the corners of his eyes and his hands now quick to jump at shadows, both real and imagined. Perhaps unfaithfully, she knew that, just as certainly as his confinement had molded him, Edmund too had been altered by his imprisonment. Yet, a traitorous part of her mind seemed to whisper – quite without her conscious agreement, she hating the thought even as it formed – in an entirely different way.  
  
“Yet, until then,” she blinked when she realized that Hewlett was still speaking, and forced her attention back to his words, “I must confess that you are not the only one who has taken to the beauty of this day to turn your mind from . . . less savory things, and that is what I wish to show you now. We will have to move quickly - we've not much time if my calculations are correct. And,” she was not imagining the pleased, self-satisfied glow to his eyes, “I do believe that they are.”  
  
“But it is daylight out,” Anna looked down at his proffered arm, able to think of only one thing that would incite such a reaction, and failing to understand how that could be. There was something familiar in his playful, promising mien, however, and she fought not to flinch as it reminded her of Abraham in happier, younger days. He was no longer that boy but for in rare, unguarded moments, she reminded herself, just as she too had left the girl she had once been far behind.  
  
“For now, I do suppose it is,” Hewlett let his voice drop in pitch to give his cryptic reply. For a passing thought, she wondered if she was being sported with, but found herself strangely inclined to trust him when she saw that his teasing could not quite conceal the twinkling in his eyes – the eager excitement that she had seen in him only once before. Even as that fond memory crossed her mind again, he shook his head as if unable to hold onto the cool persona he wished in order to reveal, as if sharing the most intimate of secrets, “Yet, in mere minutes, the sun will lose his crown in the sky, and I wish not to miss a moment of the spectacle. Come, _come_.”  
  
His words did little to enlighten her; rather, they only intensified her confusion. But Hewlett was standing patiently before her, waiting for her to follow, and she found that she could not think of an excuse enough to fight her curiosity away. And so, unable to help herself, she accepted his arm and allowed herself to be led.  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **The Solar Eclipse of 1778** : On June 24th, four days before the Battle of Monmouth, there was indeed a total solar eclipse at about 3:30 in the afternoon. I was flipping through a Washington biography for an unrelated research project, and I noticed a line that said that the troops had to be warned of the event ahead of time so as to not give into panic and superstition, and I thought . . . _wait a second!_ There was a total solar eclipse and Hewlett _did not even blink an eyelash?!_ Admittedly, the plot had more pressing things going on – and I had to tweak the dates even more than the show writers already had - but I inwardly protested that we lost such an opportune chance for Hewlett-the-solar-geek to shine through. So, now, here we are. (I am also assuming it was a cloud-free day in New York and all were able to view the eclipse - poor Thomas Jefferson in Virginia sulked to his diary that there were clouds preventing him from witnessing the event, which is just sad, but amusing in its own right. ;) )


	2. Saros

The major's telescope and its honored place in the yard were, by then, a familiar sight to her eyes.  
  
No matter the lingering, ominous weight of the day - the way her chest still struggled for breath and her heart faltered, as if baffled by the instinctual task of pumping blood through her veins - she could still smile to see it sitting so innocuously beneath the bright, endlessly blue sky overhead. Upon reaching the platform, Anna relinquished her arm's warm position, woven comfortably through Hewlett's own, in order for him to ascend the stairs first. Though she did not need his aid, she appreciated the gesture enough to accept his hand when he extended it to her, and the exaggerated chivalry of his bow drew a smile from her lips before she was consciously aware of her letting the expression free.  
  
Once he released her hand, Anna smoothed down her skirts, taking a much needed moment to compose her features into polite stillness. Rather than looking at Hewlett - whose gaze she could still feel, ever following her as if she were one of his stars to chart - she turned her attention to the telescope. More than merely accepting his invitation out of courtesy's sake, she felt her curiosity grow inside her like a living thing – once again marveling that something so unassuming held such wonders hidden within its now veiled eyes. Truly, she had not feigned her fascination with the wonders he shared in order to better secure his friendship. Rather, the marvels that science were ever unlocking _did_ tease her mind, and she was eager for everything she could learn on that subject and more. And now, for what he so queerly promised . . .  
  
“The telescope will not be of use today; we need only our own eyes,” Hewlett saw her stare, and rightly interpreted its meaning.  
  
Anna felt the corners of her mouth press upwards, but she paused before replying, assuming that he'd then tell her more – for she'd never known him to stay silent on a subject that held his passion before. Yet, when none of his words followed, she decided to allow him his game - his secrets - understanding his uncharacteristic reticence for the playful riddle it intended. She darted a perplexed glance at him, but he seemed content to merely smile his too-wide smile and observe as her mind puzzled through the scant clues he had left for her enlightenment.  
  
The platform was small, but there was room enough for two, even three people more to comfortably stand upon it. Anna looked to the right of the telescope and saw a leather folder of parchment, unbound, with its contents spread out across a small wood table. She crossed towards it, inexplicably curious, and, when she heard no objection from behind her, she carefully flipped through the sheaves of paper to glean their purpose. Her eyes were met with tidy rows of dates and neat, elegant calculations done in Hewlett's now familiar, precise hand, spiraling across the paper in trim, marching order. Beyond those pages, she further wondered upon seeing curved, elegant lines drawn out across carefully inked maps detailing their entire globe - this, she noticed with no small amount of fascination. She traced out one unfamiliar path with her eyes, following it to no clear destination, before noticing that each line had a date attached to it as a marker. And, on one arc in particular . . .  
  
_1778_ , she pondered, and traced the path where the graceful, carefully placed line of ink crossed over New York with the pad of her first finger. Perhaps somewhat prematurely, she felt a whisper of anticipation tease against her skin as a shiver, cutting through the thick gloom of foreboding that had previously defined her day, and she -  
  
“ - do these have to do with the event you are waiting for?” she asked. Even as the words slipped from her mouth, she withdrew her hand from the paper – as if anticipating having the parchment taken away from her when his indulgence was through. Though the sensible, higher logic of her mind told her that such a fear was foolishness with him, she half expected him to tell her that the dates were above her understanding - beyond her ability to reason, even. Sounding as an echo in her mind, she could still clearly hear Abraham's bemused chuckle, remembering one particular day he was allowed home on leave from King's College. His books had accompanied him everywhere, no matter the respite his holiday had intended, and rather than sitting quietly to the side as he scribbled through his essays, she had flipped through one of his books on her own accord. Though she had to read slowly, she had tried her best to make sense of the new ways of reasoning the heavy tome had presented, and she had enjoyed the exercise of her mind. Until: _Do you think you can h_ _elp me, Annie?_ Abraham had not laughed at her – not ever that – but his eyes had sparkled as he lamented, _They are_ _rather_ _above even my own ability to comprehend,_ _at times -_ _especially when the deans expect me to parrot everything back to them in Latin, Greek,_ and _Hebrew, but they intend to make an honest lawyer of me yet. Well, as honest as one practicing the law can be,_ _that is_ _. Trust me, you don't want to waste your time with this._  
  
Even so, she had tried to wrap her mind over the unfamiliar words and foreign concepts until Abraham had placed a hand over hers on the open page of the book and teased her attention away with a kiss . . . one and then another and a _dozen_ until the words she'd read were quite muddled with the summer heat and the dappled sunlight through the trees and _him_ -  
  
\- but she blinked, and forced herself to return to the budding spring and the man by her side and the _present._ Unerringly in time with her thoughts, as he ever was, she heard the whisper of a step as Hewlett came forward to peer down over her shoulder. She tensed, preparing herself for a flooding sense of disappointment, but she only heard a smile in Hewlett's voice as he explained, “These are calculations.” There was a note of pride coloring his words, she detected, some personal sense of accomplishment, of achievement, perhaps more real to him - this she privately suspected - than any validation of duty he found fulfilling his commission for king and country. She felt her brow furrow, briefly wondering at the glimpse of himself that he was allowing her to see.  
  
“They are calculations of what, precisely?” Anna inquired, ignoring the impulse she had to trace the mysterious maps before her once more. Her palms seemed to itch as she curled her fingers into fists to better fight the urge.  
  
“They are records of solar seasons,” contrary to her initial fears, Hewlett seemed all too happy to indulge her curiosity. Instead of diverting her attention to things her genteel mind could better understand, he reached down to flip through the pages to better illustrate his words. With his initial intention of surprising her clearly abandoned, he slowed his speech - not as if doubting her ability to comprehend, she thought, but out of the wish that she fully absorb what he had to say. “Many centuries ago,” he began, “the Babylonians began the practice of using _Saros -_ a fixed time-period of lunar cycles, roughly eighteen years in duration – to predict when both solar and lunar eclipses would occur. They could predict these events down to the day, to the very hour, even – and their methods are those that Edmund Halley himself studied and put into practice to predict the eclipse in the year 1760. These here are my own calculations, carrying on where he left off.”  
  
“There is a pattern here?” Anna marveled to imagine, narrowing her eyes to better make sense of the spiel of numbers and time, so much _time_ , charted out in tangible integers before her.  
  
“A very fixed one,” Hewlett fairly preened to say. “And it is one that - were our own time not so precious a commodity at the moment - I would delight in better illuminating for you. The numbers can be tedious at times, it is true, but I am sure that with two such minds applied as ours, they should not seem so very daunting in the future.”  
  
The easy assumption of his words caused her breath to catch in her chest. _If he survives today, that is_ , something insidious within her whispered - the cold part of her mind that was all quiet calculation and the unflinching necessity of what _had to be done -_ as she remembered Abraham's plan to - _Abe_ -   
  
\- but, misinterpreting her sudden stillness, she heard Hewlett sigh to say, “That is - I may be forward in assuming that you would be interested in such a droll pastime. Perhaps I presumed too quickly.” She could easily imagine the familiar way his face tended to scrunch up in self-rumination whenever he perceived to have botched an element of his somewhat unconventional courtship – and, as suspected, she glanced behind her in time to see him roll his eyes heavenwards. “I know that there are more exciting endeavors that a woman,” he tripped over his tongue again to amend, “that a _lady_ , such as yourself, may prefer - ”  
  
“ - no,” Anna found her voice softer than she had first intended to sooth his unease. “No, you understand me wrong. This is a fascinating subject, I confess, and I would enjoy learning more of it.”  
  
She then turned her body to better face him, giving up on translating the tale his calculations and astronomer's pen told - for the time being, at least - and tilted her chin up to meet his eyes. There was a puzzled shape to them, she noticed, one that was quickly giving way to a warm expression of consideration . . . one that uncannily mirrored the too familiar way that Abraham still looked at her . . . one that echoed the way Selah had gazed on her passion and her beliefs, even as she told herself that a marriage of minds and convenience was enough to sustain what she would never manage to have in a marriage of _hearts_ -  
  
“ - you use this for predicting . . . _eclipses_ , you said?” Anna spoke in a rush of quick words to cut off her unwanted thread of thinking, little liking the conclusion it would offer. She took a step back from him, her cloak brushing against the collected pages on the table next to the telescope with her movement, as if the barest breath of the spring's air separating their bodies could lighten the suddenly tense atmosphere between them, heavy with promise rather than unease, and she - 

\- she needed to catch her breath, Anna sternly told herself. She had already suffered too many a wound for the misplaced affections of her heart, and she would not, she _could not,_ again be so foolish as to -  
  
\- foolish as to what? she boldly demanded of her mind. For there was nothing to be foolish about, she took to insisting again. _Nothing._  
  
There was then a gust of wind, lazily rustling down through the newly budding trees like fond fingers, and she looked in time to see the long drapes of Hewlett's cloak flutter in the playful caress of the breeze. She caught a glimpse of raging scarlet and soft white, and forced herself to focus on that, _on that_ , rather than the unwelcome (familiar) warmth in his eyes, lest she forget herself again.  
  
“Yes, eclipses,” Hewlett said after a long moment. His words were at first heavy in their awkwardness, as if he spoke them out of rote instead of saying what he, perhaps, wished to say in their stead. But he recovered himself to happily dive into his explanation, “Solar eclipses are a phenomena caused when the new moon stands directly between the earth and the sun – making it, for a span of minutes, appear as if day is instead night.”  
  
“I've heard of such before,” Anna found her voice to say. “I thought that they were rare events, though, not as often as – every eighteen years, you said?” she struggled to apply her mind, rather than allowing it free rein to wander where it ought not.  
  
“Indeed, they occur approximately every eighteen years in a particular _saros_ – for there are several cycles, existing all at once,” Hewlett further tangled the cosmic web she was endeavoring to unravel in her mind. “With that being so, they are actually not as rare as you would think. Rather, more's the rarity of being in the direct path of the eclipse, with clear conditions in which to observe the event.”  
  
More believable was it that there were wonders in the sky that mankind was simply too ignorant – or too blind - to even know they were missing. She felt her mouth turn in a wry sort of expression at the thought.  
  
“Yet, today we seem to be blessed by fortune to have both conditions working in our favor,” Hewlett continued. “I've had to forewarn my men, for eclipses - understandably, perhaps, for their sheer scope of undeniable novelty - have long carried with them a history of superstition, as harbingers of both good fortune and woe. The Babylonians I first mentioned viewed them as an ill omen, and would even place substitute kings on the throne during the duration of such events. Better would it be, they believed, for that sacrificial monarch to take the ill luck, rather than their true ruler. There were great . . . even fatal penalties inflicted upon an astrologer whose inaccurate predictions caught the ruling caste unaware underneath the glare of their gods.  
  
“Though,” Hewlett darted a look at her from the corners of his eyes – an expression that, bare months ago, would have surprised her for the note of playful teasing it carried within, “perhaps we should not judge the Chaldeans of old too harshly. Our own King Henry the first, his death shortly followed the solar eclipse of 1133, interestingly enough. He was by all accounts still a healthy man, robust in manner and warring and hunting, just days before his sudden illness and death. So, perhaps there is something to be said for their superstitions, would you not say?”  
  
The idea made Anna tuck away a smile, wondering if the stars held some hidden clue as to how the health of their own little wanted monarch would be at the end of their conflict. They had already lived through such great, even inexplicable things in their own days – so much so that she herself could not completely disregard the invisible workings of destiny and Providence. No matter that, even as she was inevitably shaken by the whims of fate, time and time again, she endeavored to cling to her course and ever stubbornly insisted on her ability to forge her own path . . . to make her own choices, in her own way, as best she could.  
  
Anna looked up, and allowed herself a moment to study his profile, taking in the slope of his nose and the deep line of his brow, tense with concentration as it now was. For a moment, she found that her eyes were quite taken by the determination in his bearing - as if his innermost thoughts were quite in line with her own - and she could not quickly look away.  
  
“Or, rather than fearing for ill befalling our own august king, long may God keep him,” the pondering shade to his eyes lightened for him to continue, absently rattling on to fill the silence she had been content to hold, “we may simply look to the sky and hope for the best. According to the Greek historian Herodotus, there was once a war between the Lydians and the Medes which was said to have been averted when both armies witnessed the sun wink from the sky. They took that particular eclipse as a sign that the gods disapproved of their feud. They laid down their arms, and chose to take up peace instead . . . peace,” the one word was a low, almost wistful sound from his mouth. “Imagine if that is the sign the heavens intend this day?” Hewlett glanced at her from underneath his lashes in a strangely boyish manner to say. “Our days could then return to normal. Both the land and those dwelling upon it could recover from the scars of battle; fields would be planted and reaped, allowing the markets to turn in natural order once more; just as industry and academia would once again take their rightful places at the forefront of culture, rather than the gory hierarchy and blind ambition of _war_. Families could form without fear of fathers and sons being lost to this feud, just as their women could then . . .”  
  
But whatever he was about to say caused pink flags to raise on the skin of his cheeks, and he looked away as if unable to meet her eyes. For a moment, that was. She blinked as he clearly recovered his courage and his words, and for the sudden, irrational fear of hearing what he would say -  
  
“ - with all respect intended for the Babylonians and their ways, but was not Romulus himself conceived on the day of a solar eclipse?” Anna found herself blurting. She watched as Hewlett blinked, taken aback by her sudden burst of shared trivia. But she watched as he considered her words – pleased, she thought, for her ability to add something to a subject he so clearly adored. She found herself pushing on, wanting to say anything to divert him away from whatever confession she suspected he'd intended to say, “Romulus also built Rome on a day when the sun darkened from the sky, did he not? He took it as a sign that his people were blessed by the gods - ”  
  
“ - just as he also disappeared on the third eclipse of his lifetime,” delighted, Hewlett finished her story for her. He looked at her, Anna thought, as if she was a new thing to his gaze, and, dazzled, he could not find it within himself to look away. Distantly, she was reminded of his first days stationed in Setauket, and the sort of resigned futility he'd held for finding any form of culture or high-minded intelligence in their little, perceived backwater of a town. She had watched as that look dipped and waned over the past two years, and now . . .  
  
“That is a rare story for even a learned man to know,” Hewlett seemed to delight in saying. “How is it that you know it, if you do not mind my asking?”  
  
“It was one of Ben's stories,” Anna found herself answering before she could quite stop herself. She felt the color drain from her cheeks as she hastily attempted to draw her words - and her secrets - back into her mouth. “Benjamin Tallmadge, I mean,” her tongue all but tripped over the name, as thick as its syllables suddenly were to utter. “He . . . he had just graduated from Yale, and had intended to start a school here in Setauket. I had helped him with the books he had ordered for the children, you see, but that was before . . . before . . .”  
  
_Before the_ _un_ _fair_ _taxes and_ _the_ _un_ _just_ _whims of_ _your king_ , she muzzled her mouth to keep from blurting. _Before his father was beaten and cast from his church so that your horses and cannons could perch there instead,_ _guarded by the gravestones of our own_ _beloved_ _dead_ _. . ._ _B_ _efore_ _my friend_ _put down his pen and picked up a sword, he too would have delighted in this day, just as . . ._  
  
. . . but Anna bit her tongue and exhaled to find her bearings again, knowing, that just as Benjamin would have preferred his schoolhouse and his teacher's robes, rather than a soldier's colours, Edmund too would have preferred the life of a man of science. An academic man he would have better been, safe with his books and his stars, before the American trade boycotts dashed his dreams as surely as Benjamin's were dashed . . .  
  
_This war has taken too much from too many . . . on both sides_ . . . she found a compromise in her heart while still standing firm and remaining true to her passions and her ideals. _If only your king would have acted as a father to his children, t_ _o_ all _of his children, then we . . ._  
  
“Ah, the cavalry boy?” Hewlett found his words after a long, puzzled moment. “The one who . . .” but he cut his sentence off to say instead, “He was once a friend of yours, was he not? He and the whaler . . . the Brewster fellow?”  
  
Anna could not first speak. She only nodded, before exhaling. Until, finally, she drew her voice up from the pit of her stomach to say, “They were my friends . . . childhood attachments, really, I should say instead.” She forced a strained, awkward sound from her mouth that she had first intended to be a blithe sort of laugh. “Now, I confess them to be little more than - ”  
  
But she was saved from her lie by Hewlett interrupting to say, “Yet, such friendships forged during one's childhood years are how the heart first learns to love.” He exhaled, and she caught a moment's sympathy from his gaze – as if hers was a pain shared by him, and thus alleviated in the smallest ways by its sharing. “It is . . . regrettable,” his voice gained strength, “indeed, it is both regrettable and unfortunate that this country has been so torn at its seams by those few who would impose their idea of _liberty_ on the whole. This conflict has gone on for much too long, at the too high cost of the many who are rightfully loyal - and indeed quite happy - in the embrace of their king.”  
  
It was not what she meant, not at all, but how could she . . .  
  
. . . so Anna merely nodded, and felt her sin of omission settle upon her heart like a blade. She was surprised by how deeply the wound cut, at that.  
  
“I must confess,” continuing to misinterpret her silence, Hewlett leaned towards her as if confiding a secret, “that is what I hope that this eclipse today will portend. Though such pagan superstitions are supposedly a thing out of heathen antiquity, if we were to suddenly learn that Mr. Washington was met with an untimely end come the morrow - ”  
  
_General Washington_ , she wanted to correct, the disrespect making her blood pulse quick and furious through her veins at the reminder that their cause - their liberties, their ideals, their very lives - was little more than a collection of a childish group of voices throwing a tantrum before the patient eyes of a benign parent -  
  
“ - we could all return home then,” Hewlett's voice took on a wistful, far-away note, even as her ire spiked, her passions inordinately stoked. “We could return home, and peace between our two peoples would once again be - “  
  
“ - yet, do you not fear that this matter would simply rear itself up again?” Anna found her words escaping before she could quite call her mind back to reason, her heart back to order. “The war the rebels are fighting is greater, in their minds, than one man. Mr. Washington,” _General_ , her mind nonetheless insisted, pride thundering through her veins to pulse in her fingertips, “was appointed by a body of Congress, with lawful order and due process the same as any established government - ”  
  
“ - who, like children acting out, have well learned that their parents rule with a strict hand, in their best interests – even if that reasoning is yet beyond the comprehension of the youth.” Unerringly, Hewlett took the her same disparaging thought from just a moment ago, and spoke it in a tone meant to sooth, to comfort: _this war shall be over soon, and never again will the likes of such a revolution trouble your sleep. Do not you worry._  
  
But she was not soothed. No, she was _misunderstood_ , and she was unsure just precisely why that made her so angry - especially when, for both her cover and place within the ring, such was an understanding she needed to foster and maintain above all else.  
  
. . . for, she then understood her own heart with a sick, belated sense of self-awareness: she wanted him to understand her. She _wanted_ him to divine the secret-most, deeply rooted recesses of her heart and _share_ -  
  
“ - do you truly believe that?” boldly, she tried presenting her argument again, aware that she was walking upon a fault-line in a cracking sheet of ice, but yet momentarily possessed by the _need_ to -  
  
“ - I believe in order, and in law,” Hewlett replied after a long, drawn out moment. He looked at her oddly, Anna thought, and yet, such a look was not for the views which she so barely kept to herself, but for what, she dared to let herself hope, his own mind considered, and concluded. “If you asked me a year ago, I would have unthinkingly answered . . .” but he sighed, and shut his mouth over his words with a click of his teeth. He swallowed against them as if they were an ill taste to his tongue. “I have seen . . . much, since coming to America's shores, and not all of what I have seen for ill has been perpetuated by rebel hands. I will simply conclude that war itself is a disagreeable means to solve any conflict, and it catches between two sides those whom it is fought to protect more often than not. The rebels are fighting for the impossible; in that there is little sense, little reasoning, and yet . . .”  
  
She watched as he leaned forward to rest his hands against the railing of the platform, keeping his straight posture even as he let his shoulders support his weight where they were yet stronger than his maimed foot. He drummed out an absent rhythm with the long glide of his fingers, one unerringly falling after the other in an exact cadence.  
  
“Perhaps,” he finally continued, “the best I can explain it is this: even in as vast and unfathomable a frontier as the cosmos itself, we can count and order its movements. There is no chance in its mechanism; its orchestration is absolute, and there is beauty, even in what may be seen as awesomely a terrifying event as the sun disappearing from the sky to an untrained eye. A moon does not suddenly decide that it is greater than the planet it orbits, and embark to find its own way around the sun. It simply is not possible; nature prevents it. And yet . . .” this he sighed to say, “even so . . . the sun can still go dark, no matter the explanation behind it. If there is anything to make you believe in impossibilities . . .”  
  
His words teased at her ears; she held her breath. Struggling, she looked within herself for what to say, for what words to argue and explain her ideals without tilting her hand or revealing her heart. Yet, as it so often was, in the moment she took to call to mind to order and thus supply her words, she lost her chance.  
  
“Look,” Hewlett said then, suddenly looking up and seeing a sign that she was blind to notice in the still blue sky. “We have but seconds, now.”  
  
For a moment, she wanted to protest; she wanted to pull back the reins of time for but a minute more. But the sun did not hold itself to such mortal wishes, and when Hewlett reached out in a bold moment of impetuousness to take her hand, she let him. He squeezed her fingers in a brief surge of nearly childish delight, and she returned the gesture, even as her heart turned over itself in her chest, wishing . . .  
  
“It is time,” he shared on an exhale, and they both turned their attention to the heavens.  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **To Disclaim** : I am the furthest thing from an astronomer there is, and, as such, any errors in Hewlett's knowledge are, in fact, my own. I tried my best to understand my research, but if anyone has any light to shed on my flaws, I am more than open to hearing it! That said, I thank you for reading, and hope that you enjoyed. :)


End file.
